Land Use Analysis of Food Production Potentials to Feed a Growing Population

Understanding environmental impacts of the complete food supply chain is important for the food industry to help devise strategies for sustainable practices. Breakfast ingredients such as cereal, oats, wheat, etc. are responsible for more than 90% of the carbon footprint from the food sector. We curated open data from New York City on food and estimated the carbon footprint of breakfast ingredients. The results indicate that the average global warming potential (GWP) of food products is 2.64 kg CO2 equivalence per kg. This research considers environmental sustainability in the food–energy–water nexus by assessing the life cycle and environmental impacts of various food products. We also present a comparative study on the relationship between land use for food production and sustainable farming methods such as vertical farming, organic farming and indoor farming in a controlled environment and their global warming potential.